Where Both Our Hearts May Rest
by Laura Andrews
Summary: Treebeard, and what became of him. Two-shot. Bookverse.
1. Chapter 1

Time had come and gone, ages rolled by like ocean waves, and civilizations had come in and gone out like the tide. The old ent was weary of wandering the earth. His realm had grown smaller, his people fewer and more scattered, until at last he saw them no more. Long it had been since he heard the ponderous, flowing words of his native tongue. Long it had been since he had spoken it save to himself. He stood, sometimes, for a century in one spot. Moss grew over him, his feet rooted themselves so that, when he roused himself, it was difficult to move.

He was seldom seen by any living creature. He wandered far into forests that were strange to him. Here the trees could not be roused; here there was no whisper of life within them. He no longer spoke to them, no longer listened for the rustle and chatter of branches. He had outlived his time. Yet still he went on, for somewhere, perhaps, there might be a lonely entwife waiting for him.

Fair she had been, his _Umbel-marine-lelindorindianin_ … Her name ran through his mind like water over stones. In the depths of some forest which to men was ancient, but to him merely a brake of saplings, he would sing her full name, cupping his hands to his mouth and calling out to her. The sound rang out like a great bell, and then died away, and she never replied.

Sometimes he stood in sleep beneath a waterfall, and thought he heard far away his own name being called; but when he stepped out from beneath it, the sound would vanish.

When he looked into a pool, he was always surprised at how very tree-ish he looked. Would his Fimbrethil even recognize him? Would he recognize her? How old the world was growing, and he along with it; how he longed to leave it. Beyond the circles of the world, there she might be waiting for him. He cast his mind back, further and further, until he saw her as she had been when he first met her; slender, with mossy curling hair and eyes deep, deep as heaven. She reached out her hand to him, and he reached out his hand to her, and for a while they were happy together.

Why had they not remained together? If she would not stay, then he should have followed her. If she had been destroyed, he would rather have been destroyed along with her than to go on for so long that even he felt it was getting rather late in the world.

One night he stood beneath a little waterfall that spilled over a shelf, and closed his eyes. The weariness he felt was root deep, sapping him of strength and desire to move.

This was a pleasant place. The falling water splashed over him and ran down his beard in cool rivulets. He looked up at the stars. They had not changed, at least. Their brightness pierced his heart, and he thought of the elves that had once roamed through Fangorn when Fangorn covered vast acres of land. Now here was the last of Fangorn, who had outlived the elves, and the dark lords, and his own race. He heaved a deep sigh and sank into sleep, further than he had ever allowed himself to sink. He struck his roots deep into the soil and gave himself over to forgetfulness.

A long age went by and there he stood, an old, old tree while around him the forest grew and decayed and was cleared.

An axe was laid to his trunk and still he slept on. The tree crashed to the ground and was lopped of its branches and made into lumber. And so the last of the ents, and the eldest, ended.


	2. Chapter 2

He opened his eyes slowly. A bright, green light filled his vision and it took him a long time to adjust.

A great forest spread before him; the light he had seen was filtered down through branches green and hale. He became aware, without knowing when he had first begun to hear it, that the trees were alive.

He heard his own name passed along from branch to branch and tree to tree until the whole forest was rustling without a breeze.

He shook himself and lifted his foot easily from the earth. Surely he knew this place, though he had never thought to see it again. Old and young at the same time, full of life as a well is full of water, humming with the speech of living things.

He took a step forward, then another step. He could never forget this place; he knew every winding, every hollow and avenue. Surely here was Fangorn as it had been of old, a vast forest to fill his heart with delight.

He opened his mouth and out of it the deep tones of the entish language poured, reverberating through the wood until all the trees fell silent and listened.

He strode forward; already a new strength grew in him. The weariness had gone from him, and had left only the faintest memory, as of a dream.

The leagues fell away from his feet. Tireless he went on, ten thousand ent strides and more. He greeted the trees who spoke to him, and sometimes he threw back his head and laughed until branches around him shook and leaves fluttered to the ground.

He came at last to a wide meadow. A stream ran through it, and walking beside the stream, just as she had when he had first met her, was an entmaiden. Slender she was, smooth-limbed and deep-eyed. Her hair, grey-green as moss, curled over her shoulders and fell away down her back.

She looked up and saw him, and all the long ages of sorrow were gone between them in an instant. For here she was, his Fimbrethil, beyond all hope and all despair. She came to him, and he to her, and they clasped hands and looked each into the other's eyes.

"I have waited for you a long time," she said, and she spoke in the old tongue and he listened as the long and sonorous words rolled off of her tongue, while the sun rose into the sky and sank into the west.

"And I have searched an age and an age for you," he said when at last she had finished.

They walked through the meadow, where orchards grew straight and tall; and on, through grey morning dew and places that were familiar and yet new. It was Fangorn, and yet not Fangorn. Full of twisting branches here, and cultivated lands there; but neither the one nor the other was strange or out of place.

They met ents and entwives, old friends whom he had long since ceased even to dream of meeting again, and there was a harmony among them which had never been in the old days of the old Fangorn.

Here he found a beauty in the tilled lands and the broad open spaces which he had never found before; and here she loved his tangled boughs and dappled shades that before she had derided.

When nightfall came again they came to his ent house and drank of the water that ran there, and together they rested beneath the light of stars that were nearer and brighter than he had seen them since his youth.


End file.
